CAITLYN SHELLNUT: The Boy, 2nd college

I watch as my teacher paces back and forth, occasionally taking off his spectacles and sighing. His impatience grows more and more palpable as the minutes tick by…

“Davon,” he said. “It’s almost time.”

“Time for what, Mr. Garryn?”

He takes a deep, shaky breath. Although he doesn’t answer, I know what he is talking about. Today I must prove to the entire district that transferring a black student like myself to an “all-whites” school was not a mistake.

“I don’t know how else to help you Davon. I’ve tried everything in my power to teach you how to read, but you still aren’t learning.”

“But I can read Mr. Garryn.”

“Not at your grade level. You can only read first grade books while every other student in my class can read at their grade level or higher.”

It is then that he takes the book I am desperately clenching to and shakes it violently. I have never seen him so frustrated or angry with himself.

“You can’t even pronounce prejudice much less read a book about it. This is all so wrong!” he yells.

I’ve known Mr. Garryn since I was five years old. I wouldn’t describe Mr. Garryn as elderly, he couldn’t be more than fifty. He was very tall and lanky-looking, with curly salt-and-pepper hair and these huge spectacles that almost (but not quite) cover his enormous nose. My relationship with Mr. Garryn started in the most common of ways at the time. My mother used to care for his sickly wife before she passed away. They had no children, which meant that her death left Mr. Garryn with a huge property and no one willing or able to take care of it. It was then that he hired my mother to take care of not only the house, but him as well. We moved into his servant’s house a few days later. For the past seven years, I have been helping fold his laundry. Every Saturday. He likes his shirts and trousers heavily ironed, lightly starched, and neatly stacked by color. This is how he figured out my mother and I did not know how to read or write… He had left us instructions on how to stack his clothes. It was then that he petitioned for the program to be created, bringing colored children to an all-white school. He argued that if colored children had a better education, they could become more productive members of society through skilled labor. He thought that with a proper education, colored people would be able to read instructions more accurately. However, if I cannot read “Pride and Prejudice” in front of the entire school administration, his program will lose its funding.

“I don’t want you to think that I’m angry with you,” he sighs. “I am so proud of how far you’ve come, Davon. You have jumped three whole reading levels in two weeks. I just hope that this outstanding progress is enough to keep you here.”

“Would you like for me to read the passage one more time?”

“Please.”

He stands over me as I try to read page 177 again. He rests his hand on the back of my desk chair, correcting me as I stumble over the words. I recite the passage over and over, until there is a rapt knock on the classroom door.

“Come in,” says Mr. Garryn. It is the Vice Principle, Dr. Carroway.

“It is time,” says Carroway.

Simultaneously, Mr. Garryn and I take a deep breath.

“Wish me luck.”